A one-bedroom mews house in a secluded courtyard in the large Ballintyre development in Ballinteer, Dublin 16, is small, at 50sq m (538sq ft) – but feels larger. One of nine properties developed in the stables, kitchens and servants’ quarters of the 1820s house at the heart of the scheme, number 13 Coach House Square has a very high ceiling in the livingroom/diningroom which makes it feel pretty spacious.
The house, one of the last to be built in developer Ray Grehan's nearly 500-home development, sold for €220,000 in 2010 – well below the €445,000 being sought when the homes went for sale off plans just before the crash in September 2007. Now Lisney is seeking €325,000 for the property. Its owner, Imelda Robins, downsized to the house in 2010, but is moving to live permanently in Spain.
Architects McCrossan O’Rourke Manning aimed to retain the 19th century charm of the original buildings when they redeveloped them: a wide archway leads from the main Ballintyre scheme, a mix of modern houses and apartments, into Coach House Square, a pretty courtyard of whitewashed cottage-style buildings with a fountain at the centre of a flower-filled landscaped garden.
The front door of number 13, an end-of-terrace house tucked into the corner of the courtyard, opens directly into the livingroom/diningroom. Smartly decorated, it has oak floors, white walls, a marble fireplace, coal-effect electric fire and sash windows with deep windowsills. There are two Velux windows in the 5.3m (17ft) high ceiling.
A decent-sized kitchen opens at the left of the front door: it has walnut-coloured kitchen units, a polished-granite countertop and a tiled floor. The bathroom is next to it: it has a smart black-tiled floor and white-tiled walls. There is good understairs storage beside it.
Steep stairs lead up to the under-eaves bedroom at mezzanine level: it has a small window nearly at floor level looking down into the square, and two large openings behind the bed looking down into the livingroom. There’s room for a double bed and two tall wardrobes in the bedroom.
Storage in the mews house includes the understairs cupboard, a hot press on the landing and an attic, accessed via Stira stairs from the bedroom.
Outside, there’s space for number 13 to have its own small flowerbed. The house comes with a parking space just outside the courtyard. Service charges are €525 a year. The main entrance to Ballintyre Hall is off Ballinteer Avenue, opposite the SuperValu shopping centre; it’s a short drive from here to Dundrum shopping centre.
Ballintyre Hall was developed by Ray Grehan’s Glenkerrin Homes after he bought the original Georgian house on 24 acres in 2003 for €51 million. The house, which needed major renovation at the time, was put on the market in 2007 for €3.5 million; after partial renovation, it finally sold in 2015 for €1.3 million.
Glenkerrin went into NAMA after the property crash – Grehan had paid effectively €84 million per acre for the two-acre veterinary hospital site in Ballsbridge in 2005 -- and Ray Grehan declared himself bankrupt in the UK in 2011. It was reported in April of this year that he had been involved in the purchase of the Kill International Equestrian Centre.
